BELVIQ to help fight the Global Epidemic of Obesity

What is Arena Pharmaceuticals doing to make BELVIQ a success in the long-term? 

Arena is developing novel therapeutics that target GPCRs. The company's lead product BELVIQ is FDA approved for chronic weight management and was launched in June by Eisai. Arena is also looking at expanding BELVIQ not just in U.S., but to other markets worldwide and want to make this product available globally to help fight the global epidemic of obesity.

So what is BELIVIQ?

BELVIQ is a novel single agent for chronic weight management discovered and developed by Arena Pharmaceuticals. How does it work? It's believed to decrease food consumption and make you feel full. So, what happens is, you feel full, you don't want to eat, you don't want to eat, you don't have those cravings and when you do eat, you eat less. Arena’s Phase 3 program has about 8,000 patients, a very good safety and efficacy database.

Physician awareness; this is the first phase of any launch campaign. If the physician doesn't know about the drug, they can't prescribe it. They have to understand the benefit profile as well as the safety profile and who the appropriate patients are for the drug very, very important in the weight loss for a weight loss agent and a weight maintenance agent because you want to see those patient successes out of the game. So Eisai has developed a very comprehensive plan with many touchpoints for physicians.

Chronic weight management with BELVIQ and with the efficacy associated with the drug, they can actually order the pivotal trial, the general articles as well as if they just want to get the top-line results they can get those.